Inundated – the word of the week

Inundated is my word of the week. I think it describes the last few weeks actually… You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet in blog land of late. That’s because I’ve been… (wait for it…) inundated!

Work has been chaotic. A sort of organised chaos but that sort of chaos that has way too many things happening at once, that all needed to have happened yesterday. That’s meant many late nights working long after the children have gone to bed. Which is ok because I wouldn’t have been getting much sleep because they’ve been up all night.

For the last few weeks I think we’ve had almost every sickness known to toddlers, including lice. Yes, lice. Not quite a sickness but just as annoying. They’ve been sharing the germs amongst themselves nicely. This long weekend has been the worst of it. I’ve never cleaned up that much vomit or poop as I have done this past weekend. So let’s move on to nicer things, shall we?

The tree before my pruning

Another area I’ve been inundated with has been our plants. It seemed like a good idea to try and save the last border trees. We’d had a particularly hot, dry summer. As you know from previous posts, we lost a lot of our trees. So I took the children with me for a walk around the property to see what had survived and take the weeds and grass away from their base, to give them a bit of help in the survival game.

After the weeds were dealt with.

My husband helped by mowing either side, so all I had to tackle was the weeds near the tree base. It wasn’t a difficult job. Just tedious. In the end I counted near 70 trees still alive. As you can imagine, as I went along, the temptation to not worry about the weeds and grass growing around the trees became stronger!

For the most part the children kept themselves occupied. I was actually impressed with how little they whinged! Although I wouldn’t say they were helpful… I had to keep a vigilant eye to make sure my little man didn’t break the trees. Not to mention many weeds were pruned with one of my children sitting on my lap, or imitating a monkey and grabbing onto my back!

Before we left, my son insisted on carrying an empty toilet paper roll with him. The best use was when he decided it was a telescope. Of course this meant that he had to yell out everything he could ‘see’ through it.

And then there was the stick that was really a horse. They insisted on ‘riding’ it most of the way back to the house. That would’ve been about two hundred metres! Points for persistence.

And when they weren’t riding horses they were just being cute and hanging around, playing in their own little world.

But of course, that wasn’t the only inundation. We also had weather this past week, in the form of rain. Lots and lots of rain. Our dam overflowed, our water tank filled, and we finally discovered where exactly the supposed water course was on our property! We had been told about it when we bought, but we’d never had enough rain to see it. Now we know.

The water course where the water drains from the surrounding properties to our dam.

Our dam overflowed.

Standing on the front porch looking out towards our neighbours.

But of course, that wouldn’t be the only weather we’ve had to contend with. Winter has finally set in. Nights are dropping four degrees below zero. This means that we have frost. The children are excited because they know this means crunchy noises when they run outside. Don’t forget the animals too. Inside, the rain has meant we’ve been inundated with spiders. Outside it’s kangaroos, but I only managed to catch one in this picture.

Those hills… for me, it’s all about those rolling hills. I love those hills!

While I spent the first 18yrs of my life in and around Canberra and after my grandparents died I didn’t go back until I starting dating a guy in Canberra about 7yrs later and even then I did the commute between Sydney & Canberra. I never truly appreciated the beauty that is clearly evident in your last picture of the frosty start to the day with the Kangaroo near the dam. I will never live in Canberra too many sad memories sometimes there is so much beauty we miss in our countryside by not sharing photos of where we live.

I am so sorry you had so many sad memories. I hope that you’ve found a place where you’ve been able to create many happy ones. There is so much beauty in the land around us. I have to remind myself to stop and appreciate it.

oh wow what a spectacular place to call home! I love the frosty shot and the roo – how fabulous is that (but freezing looking!). What a wonderful place for the kids to be imaginative and play – what an effort riding that horse all that way!!